


Reunions

by zeldadestry



Category: My So-Called Life
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:50:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t trust anyone who tells her they’re happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizwontcry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwontcry/gifts).



A fuck-up, someone who should’ve done more with her life, yeah, Angela knows she’s too close to meeting that designation. In her twenties, she was embarrassed because she hadn’t excelled at school or gone very far at work, but, by now, in her thirties, she’s sick of the questions about why she isn’t married, why she doesn’t have kids. 

She sees Sharon sometimes when she travels home for a holiday. So, yeah, they’re still friends, kinda. Sharon insists everything’s perfect, idyllic, with her husband and their family, but Angela doesn’t believe that. It’s not that she thinks Sharon’s lying, or anything, it’s just that she knows how good people are at deluding themselves. She doesn’t trust anyone who tells her they’re happy.

“Look, Angela,” Sharon said, the last time they were together. “Don’t you think you’re looking for something you’re not going to find? I mean, if you haven’t found it yet-”

“Why can’t I?” Angela says, and there’s no petulance there, she just would really like to know the answer. “Someone I want and like, someone who makes me wish we could be together all the time, why shouldn’t that be possible?”

 

Every time Jordan’s band puts out a new album, he mails her a record. The first time he did that, she called to thank him. “Did you like it?” he asked. 

“Um, I dunno?” She laughed, nervous. “I don’t actually have a record player?”

“Loser,” he said, and, the next week, when a rectangular package arrived from him on her doorstep, she knew exactly what it was before she opened it. 

That was almost fifteen years ago, and the turntable he gave her still works. She still listens to all of his albums and she still loves his voice. 

She likes the band’s music, yeah, but mostly what captivates her are the lyrics. Am I in them? Yeah, she can admit she asks herself that question. Am I the one who got away? Or am I only fooling myself, like I did when I first knew him and heard him singing about “red”? 

 

When he e-mails to tell her the band’s going to be playing in Chicago and asks her if she’d like a ticket, she answers yes before she can give herself time to think. 

 

She goes to the show with a friend from work (she couldn’t invite any of her oldest friends because they all know about the saga of Angela and Jordan and would have given her endless shit about not getting sucked back in), and they have a good time, dancing together. “Yeah, a guy I went to high school with,” is all she says about him, revealing nothing of who he once was. - I thought I was in love with him. He was definitely the first person to break my heart. And even after that, I wanted him so much, I shivered every time he touched me. - 

They’re standing outside, after the show, debating whether to go to a bar for another drink or call a cab, when Angela’s phone rings. Five minutes later, she’s meeting Jordan in the alley behind the club. He’s got his hood up, to make it a little less likely that anyone will recognize him, and all it takes is one look into his eyes to make her need a deep breath. “So you wanna go some place?” he says. 

“You don’t have anywhere to be?” 

He shrugs. “After you’ve seen enough of them, every afterparty’s the same.” He steps closer to her. “You live around here, right?”

“Yes.” Now her heart’s pounding. 

“So can I?”

“What?” She’s not gonna be the one to say it.

“Can I come home with you?” He ducks down, presses a soft, quick kiss to her lips. “Please?”

“Yeah. Come on.”

He takes her hand as they walk off.

 

He goes down on her for what feels like an hour before they fuck. It’s never been this good before, his eyes locked on hers, his hips rocking slowly, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. 

 

When she steps out of the shower and into her room in the morning, he’s awake, and watches her from the bed as she drops her towel and starts to dress. “You look the same,” he says.

“As when?”

“As always.”

 

They make breakfast together in the kitchen of her one bedroom apartment and eat sitting side by side on the couch, in front of the tv, watching Cartoon Network and giggling like idiots. 

 

She waits outside with him as he tries to flag down a cab. 

When one finally pulls up to the curb, he hugs her, says, “When the tour’s over, you can visit me in New York.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looks disappointed. “I mean- that’d be nice.”

It’s cold outside, but his hands are warm when he holds her face between them.

“Take care of yourself,” he says.

“You too.”

He doesn’t kiss her good bye, just leans his forehead against hers for a moment, his eyes squeezed shut.


End file.
